Truny the Warlock on Trial of the Champion Loot

Yeah! And this time I was logged onto Truny! And uh huh, no one else needed it!

Not as pretty as my old sword, but +102 spellpower (With the new gems), its still shiny enough!

And yes, with an excess of Emblems of Conquest, Truny upgraded her shoulders as well!

Truny the Warlock

Turny the Warlock on Felguard Quotes

"Ohhhh that's why he says that!!", Truny exclaimed.

"What happened to your friend?"

I always took that quote as my Felguard replacing my old minion and that was that. (Though it makes no sense because why would I have any other minion out but the Felguard?)

Apparently, the Felguard recordings were originally for the Doomguard!

Now it makes sense!

Way back when, when we cast Ritual of Doom, a party member was killed! Hence the Doomguard would ask "What happened to your (dead) friend?"

I see I see.

Truny the Warlock

Turby the Hunter on Loot Drama - Spectral Kris

Self-loot Drama. The wrong drop on the wrong toon. Enough said!

Turby will keep this damn dagger in his bag and try to find a way to transfer it inter-accountly...yes that is a word.





Turby the Hunter

Turny the Dragon Slayer

Turny and Shaped taking down a massive 100ft 250 tonne bone dragon in Dragonblight.

Seriously, why do they think a giant zombified Dragon can take on a Teddy Bear and a Tree? Makes no sense!!

Truny the Warlock on Immolation Aura

Kansuke and Truny back in the day doing their daily Stratholme Mount run.

If you like bathing your screen in numbers every 2.1 minutes, go Demonology.

These were pre-Naxx, pre-Patch 3.2 spellpowered numbers by the way!

Truny Burning Them to the Ground!

Turny the Restless Tree on: I Like Damage

Healing is serious stuff. Rejuvenation and some Lifeblooms on the tank, the occasional Wild Growth to top everyone else off and you're good to go.

Sometimes, with those Really Good Tanks That Don't Take Much Damage, Turny ends up refreshing HoTs just for the sake of it, jumping around with nothing much to do.

Turny has recently discovered that in order for his mana bar to even get close to the 50% to empty mark, two or three other people other than the tank need to be taking constant beatings! AoE splash damage for the win! (Standing in VISIBLE fire/poison/void zones/etc do NOT count, GTFO!)

So DPS, start misdirecting mobs onto yourself, start death-gripping, start pulling before the tank, it makes things much more interesting! HoTs are superior for multitasking!

Turny the Restless Tree - Waiting For His Parents to Stop Running H ToC.

Truny the Warlock on Things to Remember for Trial of the Champion

What's so great about this instance and why do I keep talking about it?

Well, once Turby and Truny find their respective weapon upgrades, it will be over. No more ToC. Ever.

And with my bad luck, these two weapons will just never drop when I am on the toon that can actually make use of said weapon.

Once again I know I really do not need such marginal upgrades, but they ARE upgrades and I like to keep everyone the best that they can be.

This is actually a fairly selfish post. Why? Because as of late, Turby and Truny have been encountering many un-finished runs, with group members dropping after the first boss due to failage (that is a word). (Though most of the time they can find two groups that just blast through the instance in under 20 minutes NOT including the intro) Said marginal upgrades drop from the last boss. See the problem here?

Ok now shut the hell up and cut to the chase. If you are thinking of running Heroic Trial of the Champion for the first time, please note that this instance is a tough heroic.

Things to Remember:

1. Make sure you are adequately geared. (I would have to say, more than 75% of your equipment should be ilvl 187 or higher. I don't know, that is just my standard.) None of this green crap, and none of this level 76 crap. Why? Because what it all boils down to is that this is a very healer intensive instance, and the last boss is a DPS race to your death. No matter how good you are at your character you are only limited by the maximum amount of numbers the numbers on your equipment give you. Think about that. (If you are adequately geared but are not pulling acceptable numbers then, go work on it and do not even TOUCH this instance, wasting a lockout for others)
2. STAY OUT OF THE *FUC_ING* POISON CLOUDS. Right after jousting, the party engages three faction Champions. One of them MAY be a rogue. Ranged people, stay at range as they have a Fan of Knives which leaves a poison. The rogue will also throw poison at you, this is unavoidable. The rogue also drops POISON CLOUDS that are avoidable, MOVE THE HELL OUT OF THEM! If you do not see a green gaseous substance during the battle with this boss you may consider adjusting your video settings.
3. RUN THE *FUC_* AWAY FROM WHIRLWIND! Again, after jousting, the party engages three faction Champions. One of them MAY be a warrior. The Warrior has a nasty whirlwind attack which I have only seen a handful of melee NOT get killed by it. Since I own no melee classes, I can say that if he is in the encounter, pay attention to him while you are pew pew'ing away and RUN AWAY from his whirlwind! If there's a Warlock or Hunter in the group, we don't care that you are not dps'ing for a few seconds it doesn't matter just run!
4. Argent Confessor Paletress is annoying. Fear is annoying. AOE damage is annoying. It is in this fight where a lack of Stamina or Spellpower may be troublesome. The memory that she spawns occasionally fears the entire party which inflicts shadow damage. Also, the Confessor herself is standing there Holy Smiting people for what I see 6k. If you are the healer and can not take a few of these hits of your own while keeping everyone up, you'll need more healths!
5. DO NOT HIT Argent Confessor Paletress when the memory (giant shadow whatever boss) boss has spawned. She will reflect damage back at you. This goes for us pet owners too, make sure to switch your pet to attack the memory or it will just end up suiciding itself!
6. MOVE OUT OF THE BLACK KNIGHT'S DESECRATION! On the third phase, the Black Knight drops a death-and-decay sort of AOE on the ground which inflicts I believe 2k damage per second and slows your movement speed. Get out of those!

Yes, it is at the point where just politely mentioning that "those poison clouds hurt, it may be wise to avoid standing in them as they are quite damaging" just does not work.

That is all I can think of for now. Perhaps tonight shall be the night to finish these trial runs, I think I have proven myself many times already. Or not. With my luck I will end up rolling an 11 anyways.

Turby and Truny the Weak Weapon Users

Turny the Restless Tree on Loot Drama

Turny grew up in dungeons. No, not IN a dungeon, but running them. Turny grew up real fast, and he had to. There are a lot of crazy people hanging out in the low-levels wreaking havoc and ninja'ing everything that looked shiny!

Razorfen Kraul was Turny's err..turning point. Being a teddy bear tank up until level 28-ish, the current situation on his server was that there was a healer shortage in that level range. Ok, let us heal in feral mode. It does not matter really, just get some healing gear and roll!

Fast-forward 25 levels. Turny is now running Blackrock Depths over and over and over. It was fun and the drops were great which is a bonus!

This one run, the last DPS spot went to a hunter (uh oh), who apparently has returned to the game after a long duration and blah blah blah. Whatever.

Oh, this was one of those melee hunters by the way. Yeah, where the pet just sits unsummoned.

For the first wave of mobs in the Arena ring, Kang the Decapitator drops and everyone rolled Greed on it. Well, all but one of us. 3...2.....1.... hunter rolls Need.

(On the actual boss, this dropped but he did not roll for it....o.O)

Hmm...weird. This axe has NO useful stats, and the effect only procs when you melee...which is a no no right? Maybe he pushed the wrong button. And since the item is BOE, maybe we could have re-rolled and someone could sell it off.

He equips it.

And begins to hit things with it.

Dot dot dot.

"You know, that has no useful stats for a Hunter..." we said.

"Sorry, I just got overwhelmed when I saw it" was their response. *Continues to melee*

*Silence*

Ok fine, not very dramatic, since no one else really cared.

Moral of the story: Loot doesn't matter. If you get it, who cares. If you don't get it, who cares. (Unless it is a huge upgrade, in that case, said item should only be a small upgrade as your large gap in gear levels may make you a detrimental part of the group.) It makes no difference!

Turny Rejects

Cataclysm - What the heck omg? Warlock and Hunter Changes

Ok first of all: Whoa!

Warlocks around the world rejoice. No longer do we have to embarass ourselves, exposing our purple stringy soul-suck-finishers, and no longer do we have to keep an eye on the little number in the corner of our soul bags!

Apparently, our Soul Shard is part of our UI, making it a combat resource where we can burn up to three Soul Shards to boost various skills. Ie) Burn a soul shard, and your next Conflagrate hits for 500% more damage and hits everything on screen while your current demon multiplies to create an army, consuming the entire raid (jokes!)

This is very interesting. Not only can we hold more junk (*cough* cloth), but it adds a slightly more strategic aspect beyond "should I Soul Shatter, or shall I not Soul Shatter?"

Hunters around the world rejoice! Well, I know Turby is a happy Puppy collector now. Why? They removed our Mana bar!! Our mana bar is replaced with something we are passively familiar with: A Focus Bar. Yeah, the same thing as our pets! Just watch in the BM tree, our pet crits increase OUR focus regeneration!

I think this is great since it just feels more quick and fluid in battle when you see your energy come back rather than diminish.

And also...why did we use mana to begin with?

The last change I thought was iffy were the streamlining of stats. Removing ArP, Spellpower (huh?), Attack Power (what the?), and putting their equivalent effects into INT/STR/AGI, etc.

I don't know. Seems dumbed down to me. Armor Penetration, sure get rid of that. Never even noticed when they started to spam us with it. But Attack Power and Spell Power? The more the better right? Perhaps they need to do this to balance out...I have no idea what (and I'm not for critical thought on Mondays). It shouldn't be that hard to compare the relative advantage of one piece of gear over another with three or four variable changes right? Maybe not everyone's an accountant...whatever.

What else did I see? Oh! Stamina is apparently going to add more health than before, so no more "plate envy" as wowinsider says.

Turby and Truny are happy as that is one step closer for to wearing plate armour!

Yeah...no focus today (but will have a focus bar in the future! Ah sorry) so I'm ending it here.

The full shpeal can be found at http://www.wow.com/ of course.

Heroic Dungeons

Did I not hint it all along? From when Turny first started running SFK. Just to grab people's attention and to get the freaking instance mass-murdered:

/3 LF1M DPS H SFK
Reply: LOL Heroic?
Turny: Yeah, level 19 purples.

Few levels later.

/3 LF1M DPS H RFK
/3 LF1M DPS H RFD
/3 LF1M DPS H ZF
/3 LF1M DPS H BRD

And so on, until Outlands.

Turny the Restless Tree

Turny vs The Rest

Anub'arak Encounter

Turby: *Misdirects*, silence.

Truny: Let's do this!

Turny: Everyone know this fight? Ok, for this boss, when he casts "pound", run through him to avoid huge damage. This is very noticeable because I think it takes three seconds to cast. Also, when he's underground avoid the spikes coming up from the ground. And (to tank) make sure to pull the elites that enter from here *map clicky*. On the second wave, there will be Venomancers that have a nasty poison so everyone try to interrupt them.

Why am I a nicer person when healing?

Turby AND Truny on the Trial of the Champion Dungeon

Screw you. Seriously. This is getting annoying.

I log in and then wonder to myself "I wonder what will drop, maybe the gun will drop, but no look at all the hunters in LFG, but then maybe I feel lucky on this character..hmm...whatever I'll stick to it".

What?

Well...

Did the daily clear of the Trial of the Champion a few days ago with Turby, and *bam*, the Spectral Kris drops and is needed by a spellcaster. Whatever.

Did the daily clear of the Trial of the Champion yesterday with Truny, and *bam*, the Gun that will afford Turby an upgrade drops. No one needs it, it gets sharded. Whatever.

Did the daily clear of the Trial of the Champion again with Turby, and the gun does not drop.

Sound familiar?

Having A's item drop on B and vice versa ALL the time?

When will this end? I don't want to run ToC again! It's so easy, I just want to run around and .. MOVE! (And because I've collected all the necessary upgrades other than the fugging weapons HA so I should shut up!)

Also, I do not know why these mages and priests and every other class that can use spellpower and equip daggers are running H ToC. GTFO until I manage to roll higher than a 12 (please!). Super selfish but hey I'm just fitting into general public.

The Gun: Lower and Upper damage range increased. More agility. No Crit. Little bit less AP. More Stamina = good.

The Dagger: More Stam, more Int, a blue socket, 79 more spellpower, more crit, more haste. No hit.

Very good upgrades (so I can run people through SFK faster 你吹啊!)

Anyways, will try again today!

Turny the Restless Tree is Scared

Turny has returned, having healed chain-dungeons (it was almost instinctive to say Chain-Heroics), from Azjol Nerub, Utgarde Keep, Violet Hold, and Drak'Tharon as a level 73 (then dinged 74) noob tree!

Now, running these instances via Pugging random dps is scary. Really scary.

Now do not get me wrong, all I do is PUG, as once again Kluptomania's sole purpose is for the guild vaults. Which is another thing, where do other people store all their stuff WITHOUT a guild vault? I have five toons with filled bank slots and four filled guild vaults, and this is already selling most of the finds...anyways...

Scary stuff. Especially when there are a lot of new-to-Northrenders running around wanting to try out the two new entry dungeons: Nexus and Utgarde Keep.

You get to meet a lot of.....special people.

Prime Example: Hunter

I know I know, huntards and what-not, but up until yesterday I just...could not believe it. I was going to cry.

Ok fine, they did not cause any wipes (more to the fact that they could not possibly generate ANY aggro anyways..) nor did their pet (who was just standing around looking fluffy), but their itemization really scared me!

See, recount is just turned on by default for me and just sits nicely in the corner of the screen. It is great for Turby and Truny, but Turny does not really need it. He uses Omen because Truny wanted to see how much threat she actually generated but...otherwise it is still a habit to glance at Recount and realize I am healing.

ANYWAYS. It was at the end of Azjol Nerub that Turny glanced at the meters and saw...hmm..why is the green at the bottom this is wrong. Then he realized that "Oh, I am not a hunter right now, but...what the heck?"

250 dps. For a hunter? At level 70? A Survival hunter? What the f-?

Maybe he is having an offday with Viper left on, who knows. So Turny inspects him and goes straight to the weapons, those seem fine. The bow had STRENGTH on it, but it was still an okay level bow. (This was instantly decided as it looked like EVERY other ugly bow that are Northrend Quest Greens). How odd.

Ok off to Utgarde Keep! I need Kel'Seth's head!

First few pulls Turny, jumping and prancing around with his "Rejuvs!" noticed that...an..ARCANE SHOT(??) came out of the hunter's bow and thought "WTF? Survival with Arcane Shot?" I wanted to whisper him and mention that because the cooldown for Explosive Shot and Arcane shot was the same, always use Explosive and remove Arcane from his bar.

Inspect again. Talents. No explosive shot. "Oh..." I thought. Then I go to inspect the rest of his gear (yeah I tend to inspect one cause of attention problems HA!). Guess what I find? To my fellow hunters out there brace yourself. No seriously, do it now.

1) Expertise gear.
2) Mp 5 Gear. HOLY CRAP!
3) Spellpower gear. (Oh my god its for the arcane shot isn't it!)
4) STR and SPI all around!

Aspect of the Cheetah was on. You want to bet that they were using level 1 arrows?

Forget it, the rest of the group was fine, afterwards I shall explain to them the beauty that is Agility and shot priorities and..spellpower.

So they did not cause any wipes and was probably enjoying their hunter which is completely fine and did not really read up on what stats benefit their character the most that is fine as well, and using a unique talent build is quite brave but just..don't scare me like that again. Please.

Turny the Scared Tree

Truny the Warlock on WoW Skills

Do you ever see a "bad" player and wonder "what the hell are they doing?" You know what I am talking about, the melee hunter, the int heavy DK, the mage that casts one spell per fight.

It all boils down to the lack of information on their part. A quick google search on "hunter stats" or "mage rotations" will show one what is optimal for each of their classes. Also, it is also common sense. For example:

When Truny specced into Destruction, her one and only goal was to see what Chaos Bolt look like out of her own fingertips, that was it. (Hence the blog title picture). Now reading and choosing the talents on the way down the tree to Chaos Bolt, Truny knew which were more PVP focused, which would increase damage/utility and which would compliment one another. If one can read, this should be a piece of cake, no guides required.

Figuring out spell "rotations" was fairly easy as well. It is all about priority and the use of the word "rotation" makes me shake my head. Truny reckoned that, since almost everything was based off Immolate, she will cast this first always. (After Curse of Elements of course) What next? Well I remember seeing that Conflagrate hastens me by 30% so I shall cast that. What next? Well Chaos Bolt hits like a honk honk truck so let's cast that. What else is left? Well Conflag is still on cooldown, and Chaos Bolt is still on cooldown, logically it boils down to Incinerate until they are off cooldown.

Oh! We found an element to WoW Skill, that is "Watching Cooldowns". But wait, what about tanking and healing?

Well, tanking is essentially the same. It is prioritizing between your threat-generating abilities and also damage-reduction abilities. It is also in knowing the battles. Knowing whether or not to kite a certain enemy, to stand or not stand in a certain location, or to dodge certain attacks. The only experience I have in tanking was with Klupty, but only up to Utgarde Keep as he managed to fly to Dalaran and is now the Guild's Jewelcrafting slave.

Healing? Well that's simple. KEEP EVERYONE ALIVE! Keep the tank alive, and yourself alive and your favourite DPS alive. Choose the Warlock because healing tends to have a better effect on them. No seriously, healing "skill" is again prioritizing which spell to cast at any given moment. It is about knowing the fights, knowing how the tank operates (be them bears, holy shields, warrior shields, or DKs, or Demo Warlocks), and being aware of your surroundings. It is also predicting incoming damage, and which spell is optimal to counter it. Remember, the healer is there to heal Purposeful Damage, I believe that any damage taken that could have been 100% avoided do not deserve mana. (Turny does not believe this as he will happily jump and jump and jump towards the poor hurt soul)

Oh, we found three more elements to "Skill", "Prioritizing Abilities" and "Knowing the Fight", and "Staying Alive"!

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah The Unskillful!

So essentially the Unskillful will: Not watch their cooldowns, casting randomly. They do not prioritize what they cast, they do not know the fights (and never learn them I guess), and do not know how to stay alive. Sounds about right.

When you put it all together, it does not really take that much skill to be "skillful". It is just Knowing What to do at The Right Time.

BUT WAIT! That only applies to PvE, what about PvP?

Ahh, if you are willing to shine in PvP you are almost guaranteed to shine in PvE (but seriously go read up the boss fight first!). Why? Unlike PvE, nothing is scripted, nothing is the same other than the ground you fight on. As your opponents change, your strategies to defeat them will change and this is where you really start digging into your spellbook to find that one spell you've never used before! PvP allows you play more reactively and to get a feel of "the real world", rather than standing in one place spamming buttons. You need to move! Some spells do not work while moving! (On another note, Turny was completely unkillable at level 70 by people two three levels above him, go tree! But the level 79s tear him apart D= )

However, PvP skills are rarely judged by others since everyone else is busy fending or murdering (yes murdering!), whilst in a PvE environment they are all watching you! No just kidding, everyone is too concerned about themselves most like, as is common with this society, its the meters that are watching you!

Truny the Warlock on Reins of the Bronze Drake

Heroic Culling of Stratholme nowadays is: AOE Everything to the Ground. I would be surprised if most groups nowadays could not make it to the House With a Secret Bookshelf with MORE than twelve minutes to spare.

I understand, most freshly dinged 80s would not attempt the timed boss, but times have changed. When Turby hit 80, no matter how good you were you were still limited by Naxx gear, and that is only for anyone who had it. Turby sure didn't. It was actually tough to make it to the house with over twelve minutes remaining. The fastest Turby has seen was ten minutes (hey two minutes is HUGE ok!)

Maybe the time limit should scale to the average level of everyone's gear. This forces people to actually play with the required "skill" needed for what they bring into the instance. I know, it isn't that hard to watch your "rotations" and global cooldowns but..hey...whatever.

Anyways, after rolling lower than the #12 SIX times, Truny managed to get this Drake because everyone else had it. However she still prefers her Magic Carpet Ride.

Truny the Warlock

Truny's New Look

Ah yes, another 58 Emblems of Conquest gives Truny her new robe to show-off! The Conqueror's Deathbringer Robe! Along with the nice black flowing into bright purple theme, Truny has activated the 2-piece T8 bonus which increases Immolate by 10%, which in turn increases Conflagrate by 10% YES Burn to the ground and DIE! *Ahem*

Blagroon the Felguard has been resting for a while so Truny took him to a mountain top to take this pic!

Truny the Warlock on Kel'Thuzad

Being bored yesterday, Truny threw herself into LFG Naxx 25 in hopes of killing Thaddius to get the achievement for his wing. Lo and Behold, she gets invited to a group who were on the last boss of Naxx!

Yipes! What do I do? Kel'Thuzad? He sounds scary! Quickly, I wiki up what the hell to do for this fight as I was the last spot, and managed to learn to: stay out of red void zones (whatever those are), avoid mana bombed people, and kill some adds in the beginning. Ok sounds good. Luckily it was a really good group and Kel'Thuzad's demise was a simple one, earning Truny the Just Can't Get Enough and Kel'Thuzad's Defeat achievements! Phew.

Truny the Warlock

DPS for the Blind

Hunter:

Pwoosh-rawr-KaBoom-BOOM-BOOM-pew-pew-pew-KaBoom-BOOM-BOOM-pew-pe-uh oh "Aiyyy" *feigned death*

Mob: "What the hell, how'd he die? Had a stressful day I guess. Oh well."

Success!

Warlock:

Fwoosh-*sizzle*-FWOOSH-*honk honk* BAM (Chaos Bolt hits like a truck)-fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-bwahahaha-BURN!-*sizzle*-*Crack*

Mob: "What the hell just cracked?"

Warlock: "I shattered my soul in hopes of you hating me 50% less."

Mob: "Well it is not working and it is NOT going to take me three minutes to get to you"

Warlock: *Teleports via Demonic Circle*

Mob: "I can still see you!"

Warlock: "....Aiiyyy!! AHHH!!!"

Mob: "The hell?"

Warlock: "I am feigning my death dammit! Uggghh ahh the pain!"

Mob: /ignore Warlock

Success!

Turby the Hunter on Trial of the Champion - Crowd Control

You bet your ass I just used those two words. Crowd Control. It must have been ages since I have heard the words "want me to sheep/sap one?" since the days when Turby, the original Toon was just a wee hunter dungeon diving with (omg) four other people to down some elites!

See I guess when you are new, elites are scary. When you have not experienced the ultimate power that level 80 brings, it is quite a daunting experience to have a gold-rimmed monster attacking you and not the plate wearer. Sure, we would try to solo some group quest elites with our Puppies and Big Blueberries (oh, Hathnagma my dear Voidwalker where are you?), but dying in a dungeon is quite embarassing.

Remember the first time walking into Ragefire Chasm? At level 12? And going "holy F*ck they have 800 hp!"? And dying?

Ah yes, crowd control. See at level 80, more people of us are SO strong that in a one-on-one situation most classes can take down a single elite trash by themselves. Our spells and talents are SO strong, that we just kill and kill them all!

So... crowd control right? Trial of the Champion? What?

I know I know. Its use is quite limited. But, there is one place us Survival Hunters can use it. Well, any hunter really but it benefits Survivalists more.

You know the first phase of The Black Knight? Where he murders the announcer in cold blood right in front of your eyes? Where you then laugh and say he deserved it? And then you go and dance on his corpse? And then you wave to Thrall and wave to the excited audience? And when that announcer eventually is risen as a ghoul? Well, put a freezing trap or fire a freezing arrow onto his corpse. This way, right when the encounter starts you would have procced Lock 'N Load (survival yes), AND reduced the amount of time that ghoul has to beat on your team.

Hey, its not much but it works.

*This may fail in that the ghoul leaps over the trap right when it spawns! GR!

Turby the Hunter

WoW Heads

Yes, heads. I have come to realize that our friendly quest-giving NPCs all share a common trait where they all love heads. (Hmm..)

Where do they keep all these heads? How come different people collect the same heads? How do my toons even know how to chop off someone's head?

Turby likes to shoot things. I guess Puppy can help bite the head off, but there is no guarantee that he will not eat it.

Truny likes to burn things to the ground! And pre-Felguard, none of her demons can help her chop off a head!

Maybe, if these quests had objectives that co-related with each corresponding class.

Hunter:

Go shoot [so and so's] in the face for me ten times, after you have killed them. Feed it to your pet.

Warlock:

Go burn [so and so's] face off for me after you have killed them. Then burn the head, and the body, and the entire place down to the ground!

Warrior:

Go chop [so and so's] head off for me after you have killed them. (THERE WE GO!)

Druid:

Go bash [so and so's] face in for me after you have killed them. Afterwards, sprout some foliage on their corpse just to add insult to injury. (Why? Don't question it!)

Shaman:

Go shock [so and so's] head off for me after you have killed them, just like Raiden's fatality.

Rogue:

Go mutililate [so and so's] face for me after you have killed them, then take a picture of it.

Priest:

Go melt [so and so's]face. After you have killed them.

Paladin:

Go do all those shiny weird effects on [so and so's] face for me, it's all the same. Blessing of Holy Sanctuary of Righteous Hammery Justice Indignation Rights.

Mage:

Sever [so and so's] head for me by means of a teleport portal, yes those can be used offensively.

Death Knight:

Go and Death Grip [so and so's]head and- hey wait get back here, oh no that Dk is pulling aggro..oh- oh no there they go getting themselves killed and- oh I can't look, their party has wiped again.

So yeah, heads.

Turby the Hunter on Loot Buffet Updates

Like I said, upgrades and drops and emblems and YUMMY!

I am not even sure how, I had not played on Turby for a while but when I logged in I realized he was really close to the magic 58 emblems for a T8.5 Helm! Yes, the Helm of Huntery Spike Death!

Also, running the daily heroic TOC, Turby got lucky with Marrowstrike..which is..a bonus I guess!
Now Turby has the 2-set bonus which "increases your damage of Serpent Sting by 10%"..what the hell? I guess for bosses that last longer than the duration of one sting....

Say hi to Turby and Puppy! (Showing off Marrowstrike as that is probably the best weapon I can get for a very long time lmao!) I also feel like I belong in Doom 3 rather than WoW with my metal spikey gas mask.

Truny the Warlock - Helm of Death!

After a week's worth of emblem grinding Truny would like to show-off her new "hat"!

Look at her with her little purse and glowy sword and BIRDY HELM OF DEATH!

3.2 Emblem Changes - Its All Accounting

After my mini-rant yesterday I had come to realize, it's not about who or why people are getting shiny epics like they are at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but it's...the value of our existing system versus the new content has depreciated. Also, people need to realize that they are not special because in essence, we are all "equal" in the game.

The reason some people are mad, is because Blizzard altered space and time itself!

What the hell did you just say? Values? Bronze Drakes?

Think about it. Patch 3.1 brought to us Ulduar. When this patch was released, I am sure that most guilds have completed Naxx 25 and were just re-running it to gear up for 3.1. As you can see here, during this time-frame, Naxx 25 gear was probably the best in-slot and someone decked out in full end-game gear was well...pretty much at end game until the next patch. They have appreciated their gear to its maximum possible value.

As 3.1 hit, everything item pre-Ulduar depreciates in value. (This is of course in terms of stats, as I still love my T1 set) The depreciation term is relative to how long anyone has been decked out in Naxx gear to the start of the next patch. Now 3.1 came out so far out that most people were ready for the new gear, they were ready to give up their shinies for better shinies.

To make things more simple, say you are saving up towards buying a new car. It is a brand new 2010 model and there are only four in the city (*cough* I'm talking about YOU Lexus IS-F-back-in-the-day...sorry), ok maybe not four but a very limited amount. It's nice, you buy the car first, you're ahead of the game, it feels good to have this car whilst everyone now must wait for more models to be shipped in. By the time more people have it, you are already bored with this car and ready for a new one. Yes, essentially this a very materialistic.

Now, Patch 3.2 is a different beast. Ulduar hard-mode is I assume, way more difficult than Naxx 25 and by the time 3.2 hit, most people had NOT completed Ulduar, and had NOT received all their end-game shinies. Hence, not a lot of people were end-game pre-3.2 and are now seeing what they have been working towards depreciate in value before they could fully appreciate it. Time had been compressed, the rate at which the value of everything decreases has accelerated!

Same example again, you are saving up for that oh so shiny car and are so close to saving up that last $15k, and all of a sudden a mass shipment arrives, supply increases and prices drop (though only slightly) and now you are indignated that you are now not the "special" one. What you were saving up for is not so special anymore.

See, the car example is nice, however the one flaw is that even though there was an influx in supply, only others as wealthy as you would flock towards purchasing it. "Normal" people would probably not even care.

See what I am getting at? Everyone likes to think that they are unique and special flowers and everything is for them. There is no "I" in Team, but there is "me me me!" The truth is, you are not special. No one is looking at you. They do not really care what you are wearing (unless it is dreadfully distasteful) or what phone you have or what color or flavor your underwear is..err...

You should know from day 1 when you made your first toon and realized you will be staring at their BACK and is not distinguishable from anyone else that you are probably not going to stand out unless you were somehow bright pink and super massive no?

And really, there is not a class system in this game despite people classifying some players as "casual" versus "hardcore". Are the "hardcore" people the wealthy folk?

No.

Essentially everyone has the same access to every single dungeon/raid/event that is thrown out, it is just a matter of time devoted towards each item. So when the new patch arrived, everyone is affected. A non-raider who was thinking of raiding might appreciate the Ulduar weapons a little bit less just like everyone else.

Am I straying off topic? Well it doesn't matter this isn't an assignment screw you! Sorry *cough*

Truny and Turby of Kluptomania

Emblem Changes and the Loot Buffet

When I had first read about the emblem changes from the recent patch I thought "cool, now I can get a chance to see what the T8.5 helms look on my toons! And...they are going to be super upgrades!". That was it, just to see the helms and upgrade from the rather lack of choices of helms for non-raiders.

Emblem Changes

And of course, I had read this information on various forums and of course, I love to read the comments and had realized that some people were furious about this.

By now we've probably all heard enough about it, but most of the complaints were along the line of:

1) We worked hard to get our gear (via raiding) and now noobs can get them just from farming heroics.

Ok, let's take a look at this. How long does an average raid take? I don't know three hours? How many pieces of gear will drop on average? I don't know 30? No? More than ONE? Yes. (I remember seeing four potential upgrades just from one wing of Naxx)

Ok, how many emblems does it take to purchase ONE item, let us say of the Valorous kind as most people will probably not want any Heroic Emblem loot anymore. 25 to 60 emblems, on average 43 emblems of Valor to obtain a SINGLE item. With a good group, most instances take somewhere between 30min to maybe an hour and drop on average four emblems. So in three hours, one may be able to get in five heroics for a total of about 20 emblems plus one (for the daily).

As you can see, it takes a while to get one item, albeit the method in obtaining it is relatively easy. And by "working hard" is probably to say that it may be difficult to learn some encounters, and also difficult to co-ordinate 25 people for said encounter. But in heroics, though the encounters are much more simple, there are still certain fights that require say..movement! (Ready? Ionar and Loken, run, Giant Lady, get out of the shadows, Giant Stone guy, spread out, Other Stone guy, move out of spikes, Keristraza, jump/strafe! etc...)

It all boils down to how one decides to spend their time. As my example had stated that in three hours, five heroics may be ran, there are some people who only want to run one dungeon a day.

Also, why the term "noob"? Everyone who just freshly dinged 80 or does not raid and is not wearing raid gear but want raid-quality gear are noobs? No.

2) They do not deserve/need (my) all this gear!

Hello, why do I not deserve all this shiny new gear? There is now a system that allows us to obtain it so what is going to stop me from getting it? I do not deserve it because I have never taken a shot at some difficult raid boss? Does this make me a lesser player? Am I less skillful? If so, does it really matter? Truny had recently joined a Naxx pug, the first time ever setting foot in it and popped 2nd on the meters AND did not cause a major wipe AND learned the encounters from the instruction given to the raid (was also one of the last to die on Thaddius when some people just did not know how to run away). Is it players like me that are a threat?

We do not need this gear. Define need? We do not need to play this game at all. So what? What if I just WANT that pretty Bird-helm (pics to come!), or the deadly spike helm of deadly spikes for Turby the Hunter? It LOOKS cool, I value aesthetics over stats. Ever thought of that? Yes, in terms of stats I know I do not need ilvl 226 items for heroics, ilvl 187 is completely fine (yes I do have standards, no one should go lower), but the ilvl219 is so much PRETTIER and actually has COLOR or a PATTERN to it that isn't FUCKIN' BORING/REPETITIVE (*cough* yeah I'm talking about YOU every-single-item-from-level-68-to-80).

The Loot Buffet

Now on the other hand, I do find that the Trial of the Champion 5-man dungeon is a bit........like a Loot Buffet. The normal mode drops ilvl 200 epics, ALL epics, and FIVE of them. And for once we see some fairly useful stats (aka more than just ONE bonus).

The heroic version drops FIVE ilvl 219 epics, weapons included. Now, what quality of gear is 219? I think it is Ulduar 10 correct me if I am wrong. Now a freshly dinged 80 can obtain Ulduar 10 gear right off the bat, which is great for jumping an ALT right into Ulduar but what of a non-alt?

Myself, I like the little progressions we see in our character, going from normal instances, getting fully decked out in blues, then throwing them all away from the heroic purples and the occasional VOA lotto. Jumping straight to 219's is just...is just going to be the new thing I guess.

I guess in the back of my mind I do have the slight elitist thought of "now those actually bad players will have too much power within their nooby grasp, causing wipes even FASTER". However, I know that the gear does not make the player, and 4.5k dps will just be the new standard and anyone only doing 3k are the kickouts. (AND..they only cast one spell per encounter anyways so nevermind all that!)

Buffet? Of course. Within the first week Truny had already ground out her helm of awesomeness (58 emblems of conquest) and some 219 upgrades, because she WANTED them.

Turby, is about 28 or 20 or 30 I forget, emblems away from his helm as well. If the gun from the new dungeon would drop, he would click "need" for the superior stats but would not "want" it because...it's a stupid noisy gun with reused graphics!

Anyways...yes, even the design of the new dungeon is: Welcome all, have a seat on your war-worg whilst we serve you the bosses and you will be delighted that they are served with juicy epics. You don't even need to MOVE (that much) in this new dungeon! They just throw the bosses right at you, and as they are downed a chest appears in the middle (where you are probably STILL standing) and voila!

Yeah lazy fat-asses its all good.

Truny the Warlock

Ps: I know the intro to the new dungeon is super long but it doesn't matter as mentioned before, just think of it as a really long line-up to a really good buffet (*cough* yeah I'm talking about YOU breakfast-lunch-dinner-buffet-at-the-Wynn-in-Las-Vegas!)

Truny the Warlock on the Trial of the Champion

The lag had disappeared yesterday. Yay! What did Truny do? Run multiple back to back heroics of course! Now, even if the patch did not get implemented as quick as it did, Truny would still be running back to back heroics just for the Emblem of Heroisms for the lowbie epics (I guess that's what we should call them right?)

ANYWAYS, after most of the party had slowly become locked out of every single instance possible we realized that no one had done the new dungeon yet! Excellent, let's go try it out (and see how badly we die)

So from what Truny saw here is some useless information/tips:

Round 1: Jousting Champions

After being announced as up and coming Champions of your faction, three random groups of the opposite faction (1 boss, 3 trash each) will parade into the arena.

"Fuck, we hope we don't have to kill them ALL at the same time"

Luckily, you fight them in three waves of three trash each.

Just joust them like in the stupid daily quests.

Once they are down, the three bosses joust the party. I would have to say to focus fire on one as they have about 300k HP and keep your damn shield up! Once you diminish their HP to 0, they will dismount and try to run to another mount (you can also run to another mount if you get dismounted and not get killed).

Before they can remount, trample them to the ground! We had discovered this accidentally I think from our random frantic jousting and seeing "Boss has been trampled" which I thought was freaking hilarious.

Once all three are dismounted and trampled, you fight them...normally!

The tank should grab all the aggro and oh yeah:

Everyone but the tank try to stay away from the goddamn gates where the enemies enter!

Kill them all. The three represent three random classes (Shaman, Rogue, etc). Kill the one that looks like its a healer.

Congratulations on your newly earned epic gear. One piece drops.

Round 2: Random Boss

We had to face off against Eadric the Pure, some pally type Draenai I believe (spell check). He comes with nine I repeat NINE trash mobs to begin with, all with 100k+ hp. Scared? Well after wiping on them we realized that: There were three groups, three each.

Each group comes with a Priestess (kill her first, she heals..but why are we killing Argent Healers?), a Monk, and a Lightbringer/Wielder.

Eadric now engages the party. He will occasionally cast "Radiance" which will blind you and damage you if you do not turn your character around. It is quite easy to avoid as there is a whole bunch of speech and the cast is three-seconds. He'll also throw his hammer at a random party member for high damage but nothing special.

Grats on your second easily earned epic gear. Two pieces drops.

Round 3: The Black Knight

This dude has three phases.

Phase 1: Tank and Spank. He will also summon one ghoul which the party should burn down first as the Black Knight likes to cast Explode Corpse on his ghouls which do some nasty splash damage.

Phase 2: He will now summon a whole ARMY of these Ghouls. AOE them to the ground before they explode! Truny actually had to change into Demonology to make use of Metamorphosis' Flaming Aura of Death! It is hard trying to CC all the ghouls and running away from them before they explode, and they seem to have random aggro so huddle up and AOE! Oh during all this, you are still fighting the boss, though once you kill the Ghouls you should be able to see him better o.O

Phase 3: Last phase. He will turn into those annoying spectres that hit super hard in Sunken Temple (remember those?) and essentially this is a DPS race between the party and the boss. He will constantly be casting a spell on each party member which stacks the amount of magic damage taken per hit. And of course, this spell...is magic damage so after about 15 or so hits most people would be getting hit for 15k or dying.

Congratulations on your last few pieces of epics. Two more epic pieces drops, one was a weapon for us. (WHY A GUN?) (Seriously we need more nice bows.........)

Alas, Mail and Spell Power plate was dropping all day but Truny did get to upgrade her cape to this:

It's Orange! OMG a WOTLK item that has...COLOUR?? Holy crap!

What's for Dinner?

Notice: Proto-Drake Whelp pets may be nerfed in the following patch. Currently, when a player sends their Proto-Drake Whelp non-combat pet out to collect (free) meat for guild dinners they may display signs of bestial frenzy, slaughtering everything in their path!

Hadou #4: White Lightning

Wild animals do not stand a chance against the wrath of the Death Gods!

Truny the Warlock on Purple Hat!

Yesterday was hectic. Got home at around 20:00 with the new patch downloaded and ready to roll, I logged in and found myself stuck on the loading screen.

Ok whatever, need to study anyways so I was taking notes while I was logging in.

Ten minutes later, *click*, the sound of others logging in, I look up and there's Truny in Undercity!

Excellent. Let's go check out the daily to get some emblems and check out that new dungeon!

*Hearth*..

..oh, nothing happened. Ok, I will hoof it manually by zeppelin back to Dalaran. As I approach the stupid elevator shaft *poof* Northrend Load Screen. Ok cool, just lag.

It's slow...let's take some more notes.

*Sounds and noises*, yes! Grab the dailies throw self in LFG and fly to Icecrown!

Before I made it to Krasus' Landing I was invited for the Trial of the Champion. Cool.

The Argent Tourney building (whatever its called) is finally up and running (I wonder how since I never collected the stupid wood and fuggin' stones for those gnomes) and Truny flies into one of the long decks with the instance portals at the end.

Ooh, wow what the hell three tiers of T9 gear...so confusing. They do not even have Heroic/Valorous headings anymore, how odd. Apparently, that deck was the raid.

It took about 20 minutes to get the entire group unlaggy and into Icecrown and we all rushed into the 5-person dungeon. It was exciting because it was going to be the first dungeon in a LONG time where most people do not know the fights!

*Load screen* (Is not moving)

*Tries again, and again, and again*

"Ok guys screw this let's just do the daily (HOS)"

It took a long while for all of us to zone into the instance and Truny had to lock-summon people in to save time (which didn't really). So there we got our first few heroic ulduar emblems and the two Triumph emblems from the daily quest. The only thing was everything was still so laggy everytime ANYTHING had to interface with your inventory you would lag (ie picking up items, soulstones, emblems).

Anyways, main topic all the way down here. I was scoping the gear list wondering if there even WERE any in the new dungeon, I realized that WOW everything has sockets (duh new epic gems) and OMG there is an ilvl 219 HELM drop chance once a day from the heroic version. Also, it doesn't look STUPID! Though the dagger (go look it up yourself I am too lazy to link another item) looks pretty nice Truny is more concerened about getting out of blue gear because...you know those people.

Truny thinks, while trying at this helm drop should satiate her hunger for Putress' head for a bit. 11/58 emblems!

Patch 3.2 - What the hell?

Wow, so fast? I had really thought the next patch would not be out for at least one more month. Now I am stuck at work trying to see what Turby/Truny will be doing at the end of the day (I have to download the rest of the stupid patch don't I??)

Here are the points I found interesting:

1) Titanium Ore is now prospectable into epic gems.

Are you serious? This is GREAT! Turby literally has HUNDREDS of them collecting dust in his mining sack! I had started collecting them ever since I realized how profitable selling a Titansteel Bar every day was, but the ores just started piling up and I did not want to part with them ever since.

+5 points!

2) Emblem of Conquests

Nice! Heroic Farming anyone? Now Truny has a viable method of obtaining her T8.5 Helm Of The Awesome Death Bird! Fits well into RP purposes and its a great upgrade from my Hat of Wintry Doom. Turby can farm heroics too but I think he's lost his RP element (pets did not get armor). Why am I at work again? I want to farm NOW! Oh well, as a non-raider I am already behind ....

+10 points!

3) Druid Form Changes

Cool! Now instead of looking to heal for people to gain exp, Turny can actually TOLERATE being in cat form for more than 5-min and actually RIP things to death himself!

+5 points!

4) Mount Changes

FINALLY! I had realized after playing Turny the Restless Tree up to Northrend, I had preferred to insta-cast into travel mode or even stay in Kitty Form just because it felt good and allowed me to avoid the THREE second cast time to mount a Kodo (which felt slow to begin with).

The required level to receive your mounts have also decreased, which makes levelling alts THAT much better. The 150% "slow" flight speed is also a bonus, but for those who have already experienced 280%+, you will probably still use the money sink to speed yourself up.

(Sorry, I am starving and eating hence I am not being very coherent now LMAO)

+10 points!

5) Class Specific Changes

Turby the Hunter, Beast Mastery and Survival

-"Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds"

Nice!

+2 points!

-"Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap. "

I don't think I use that..

-"Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used."

What? No back to back procs? Oh well....boohoo.

+/- 0 points!

Truny the Warlock, Demonology and Destruction

-"Shadowflame: The angle of the cone effect on this ability was inadvertently very small, making it difficult to use. Its cone is now the same size as similar spells, such as Cone of Cold. "

Never used Cone of Cold before but it'd better be wider than 2mm. dammit!

+ 2 points!

-"Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes"

Well, better than nothing. Though I've been practicing and have been keeping threat just under the red danger zone now!

+ 2 points!

-"Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes."

Very nice, though my pet only tends to "die" when I die. And I do not die every three minutes. But still, this will ensure that it is almost always off CD. (And saves a 10 second cast)

+2 points!

-"Empowered Imp: The warlock's critical hit chance is increased to 100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically hits a target."

I was just thinking the other day how underwhelming this talent was, now...!

+2 points!

-"Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down from 3/6/9/12/15%."

5% less damage does not equal 5% less fun....so now our 16k crits are 5% weaker? Boo hoo.

-2 points!

Turny the Restless Tree, Feral and Restoration

-"Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient."

20%?? So its base healing and the bonus healing from my own spellpower is 20% less?? Ugh, oh well...at least it can still crit.

-2 points!

-"All those feral abilities"

See, I don't really remember what my attacks are. I just know Mangle is pretty good. And some bleed that I do can crit (button 5 on my binding), be it Rake/Maul/Claw/Shred/Rip/Bleed/Tear/Scratch/Fury Swipes I do not remember.

Well, looks like most got damage reductions which is always a =(

Enough for now!

Must...farm....!